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As we are bombarded with Back to School advertisements, I think back to a year ago when CJ was all excited to be starting Kindergarten. Finally he would get to go on the school bus like his big sister. He was even excited about going to the doctor little did he know his excitement would soon turn to tears from vaccinations. But something else came to light as he was getting his Kindergarten physical. He was having trouble seeing the Eye chart. At first I thought it could be all the nurse’s walking in front of him as he tried to make out the shapes or the impatient nurse trying to administer the exam. Considering both my daughter and I wear glasses, I decided to take him to the eye doctor. Better safe than sorry.

We soon learned that CJ has Amlyopia or commonly known as “Lazy Eye”. I have a cousin who has a severe lazy eye but I never really noticed it on CJ until the Optometrist pointed it out. Then I noticed it all the time. The Optometrist recommended a pair of glasses for CJ, an Eye Patch and some Vision Therapy.

While doing my research on Vision Therapy and eye patches, I learned that traditional eye patches are devices that are taped over the child’s good eye. And can sometimes be difficult to remove because of the adhesive. I thought to myself there has got to be a better product out there. Because as a Mother I know, that if there is pain involved, the child is not going to be too willing to wear it.

So I kept searching through countless pages on the Internet. Page after page held the same type of traditional eye patches. Until I came upon Anissa’s Fun Patches. A Grandparent invented a unique but simple eye patch for her Granddaughter, Anissa. This eye patch slips over the arm of the glasses and onto the nose piece to block the vision in the good eye. No adhesive is needed whatsoever. Credit Card in hand I order a five patches. I was quite pleased with the product. And they even sent CJ a Christmas card and a Free eye patch in December.

There are days when I still have to fight CJ to wear his patch, but this is an easier battle than what I would have been fighting had he had to wear the traditional eye patch. And here is the puzzle we completed tonight as part of his Vision Therapy.

Its been a little over a week now since I originally took this photograph. I had originally captured this photograph in color with my digital camera. But once I got back to my digital darkroom (aka my computer) I realized how stunning this photograph would be in black and white. What makes this photograph stunning in a monochrome tone is how the light falls on the photographic subject, the flowers.

The sun was just beginning to rise as I snapped this photograph of the flowers. You can see shadows on the ground as well. Areas of light and dark are what you want to capture when composing a good photograph in monochrome. After doing a little cropping and adding a frame, I knew I wanted to save this photograph for release on a Monday for the Monochrome Weekly blog meme.

If you would like to purchase products featuring this photographic print, I have made them available for a limited time in my Cafe Press Shop.

You can’t have a summer in the desert without monsoon storms and you can’t have the sky without airplanes flying around. Last week while I was outside watching the skies, hoping to capture some photographs of the storm rolling through, an airplane happened to be flying overhead.

To see more photographs from Sky Watch Friday participants or to submit your photograph, just click on over with the banner here

A great source for photography gear so you too can take wonderful photographs for Sky Watch Friday!

Walking about the neighborhood some time back, I came upon this empty lot and my eyes were drawn to the “Keep Out” posted on the joshua tree. My first thought was that there was nothing there to go in to. And then it dawned on me that the birds who call that joshua tree home must have posted it. So there you have it, my Wordless Wednesday, complete with about 100 words or so.

If you read my blog regularly you should be a subscriber, then you know I took part of Scott Kelby’s 2nd Annual World Wide Photo Walk this past Saturday. For those who are not familiar with Scott Kelby, he is a Photographer as well as a Master of Photoshop. I hope to learn many things from his website over the next 30 days as I was granted Free Access for a month to the many tutorials he offers.

I took 154 images in about an hours time. When I got home Saturday morning, I quickly organized them and picked out my favorite for submission for the contest. Monday, once I had had some sleep, I began to go through the photographs again and found more jewels hidden within the digital files. When I saw this one particular photograph, I was drawn into the image by the vibrant reds and thought how wonderful it would be to debut this photograph on Ruby Red Tuesday. This flower really stands out from all the others in the background. Definitely the Star Flower in this picture show. I hope my audience finds this digital photograph pleasing to the eye.

Now I invite you to click on over to the home of Ruby Red Tuesday at Work of a Poet and view the other amazing photographs bloggers have submitted and don’t forget to leave some comment love. And if you enter, we’ll be kind and love you too with our comments.

Since the beginning of Photography, photographs have been recorded in black and white. Originally, a photographer would open the lens and expose the film to light. The film would simply record areas of light and areas of no light. It wasn’t until the recorded image was processed in the darkroom that color would be introduced onto the photograph. This still holds true for digital cameras today. The sensor inside your digital camera, like traditional film, is also sensitive to light. When you press the button on your digital camera, the shutter opens and exposes your pixels on your sensor to light. The sensor then assigns a value (1-256) to each pixel to indicate the brightness of the scene captured through the lens.

Understanding how my camera records what I see has helped me to better understand how to photograph a good black and white photograph. Through my new found knowledge, I am looking at scenes through my lens in a whole new light (pun intended.) Just this past week we had some monsoon storms pass through the desert and weather is always an eye catching image to photograph, at least for me anyways. Here is one of the photographs I composed for my submission to Monochrome Weekly. Tell me what you think.

To view more Monochrome Weekly photographs, click on over and check them out. And if you would like to submit your black and white photographs, then add your link to Mr Linky on Ailene’s site as well.

This week Mr. Linky is hosting a Blog Hop entitled, “Favorite Photo.” My Favorite Photo from recent photographs has got to be this one I snapped this past weekend at Legoland. My family and I were waiting in line to get on a ride. My son was bored standing there so he asked me for the map of the park. As he is looking at the map he is trying to decide which ride to go on next. This is one of those moments when I am so thankfully I looked like geek and had my camera hanging from my neck.

CJ reads the Legoland map

Click here to enter your link in the blog hop and view the entire list of entered links…

For Monochrome Monday I offer up this framed joshua tree for your viewing pleasure. If you would like to view other monochrome photographs, then click on over to Monochrome Weekly’s home or if you would like to submit one of your own for our viewing pleasure.

I cannot take credit for this stunning picture of the day. I came across it while reading “30+ Creative Typography Art” blogpost over at Six Revisions. This picture is actually the work of Adolf o Correa and was pulled from his Portfolio over at Behance Network. I just thought this was really cool and thought I would share it with you, my loyal readers.

And I also wanted to apologize for my blog looking funky. I am not happy with it. I believe I have come to the conclusion that if I want to have a unique looking blog sooner than later I will have to begin hosting it myself with WordPress so that I can use my own creative talents to create a blog that is uniquely me. I probably could create something unique here on WordPress.com but I do not have the time to learn the ins and out of CSS nor do I have the finances to outsource such a task.

The dawning of Wednesday morning is upon me. The only thing I have to show for my late night of working is this new header I created for my Blog. I am no different than other bloggers in my quest to showcase my individuality on my blogosphere real estate. I am rather happy about my creation. The only thing I am unhappy about is my ability to implement my changes into the CSS Editor here on WordPress.com. Perhaps a good night of sleep and a few hours of uninterrupted time at my computer would assist me in my quest for I am too broke to hire someone to do it for me and determined to add another self taught label to my name. Am I even making any sense?

Well my loyal readers, I ask for your feedback on this new Blog header. What do you think, honestly? I look forward to your valued opinions upon my return to the blogosphere after a much needed nap. G’nite!